


glow in the dark stars

by forestghost



Category: Moon Land (Manga)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Coming Out, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Late Night Conversations, homophobic parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25444243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestghost/pseuds/forestghost
Summary: When Sakura shows up unannounced in the middle of the night, Akari knows that something is very wrong. This isn’t like the panic attacks he’s been having since elementary school.
Relationships: Dogase Sakura & Hida Akari
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	glow in the dark stars

Akari stifles a yawn as she tries to focus on the video playing on her laptop. She’s seen it a million times already, but the uneven bars final of the London Olympics holds a special place in her heart. Perhaps because she begged her parents to record it for her and spent hours and hours re-watching it lying in front of the tv, arms propped up on the scratchy living room rug and chin resting on her hands. It is a fond memory.

She can’t even remember the last time she did that. Now, Akari usually curls up in bed to watch gymnastics replays, with fairy lights illuminating her room and a cup of steaming tea on her bedside table.

The soft _pling_ of an incoming message makes her look up from the screen. Confused, she gropes for her phone under the blanket. It’s already past midnight, who would text her at such a late hour?

_[Sakura-chan] open the door i’m outside_

Akari blinks slowly. That doesn’t make sense. A second message pops up on the screen.

_[Sakura-chan] hurry it’s cold_

Throwing back her blanket, Akari slips out of her bed and walks over to the window. It’s hard to make out in the dark, but there is a figure standing in front of the door, arms wrapped around their chest against the biting October cold. She squints. As they turn their face up, the weak light from the street lamp falls on their face.

She curses. It is one thing when Sakura calls her at 3 am, voice trembling and scratchy with barely contained sobs and begs her to stay on the phone until he calms down enough to fall asleep. But he has never done something like this, showing up unannounced in the middle of the night. Something is wrong.

As quietly as possible as to not wake up her parents, Akari hurries down the stairs and into the hall. She flips the light switch and takes the key from its hook on the wall, unlocking the front door and pulling it open.

Sakura looks terrible. His skin is ashen and wet trails glint on his cheeks. Before Akari can ask what happened, he has pushed past her and tossed his shoes aside, leaping up the stairs to her room.

For a moment, she stands there too perplexed to move. A gust of wind makes a shiver run down her spine, and Akari quickly locks the door again. She places Sakura’s shoes next to her own so her mother won’t have a heart attack when she comes downstairs in the morning and follows him to her room.

Sakura is lying on the bed, fingers gripping her blanket tightly and staring up at the stars on the ceiling. Quietly, she picks up the laptop she abandoned at the end of her bed and carries it over to her desk, before lying down next to him, making sure that she isn’t touching any part of his body.

Back when they were in elementary school, she didn’t understand Sakura’s anxiety. She just knew that sometimes, he didn’t like to be touched and couldn’t speak and needed to lie down. So, she let him lie on her bed and stayed by his side until he could breathe freely again. Later, he had told her about his insecurities and how sometimes, the pressure became too much and he felt like he was going to collapse under the weight of his father’s disapproving glare.

In middle school, he had probably spent just as many nights at her house as at his own. By then, Akari could tell when his anxiety was about to spiral out of control by the trembling of his fingers and the way his breath hitched and how he avoided eye contact. She never asked what exactly caused his panic attacks, though. If Sakura wanted to talk about it, he would.

When they entered high school, he stopped reaching out to her. It didn’t make much sense, she had seen Sakura cry more times than she could count, but there was nothing she could do. He was stubborn like that. So, when he did seek her out, she knew that he truly needed her and she never complained when he woke her up in the middle of the night because his anxiety was so bad that he felt like he was going to suffocate. Even if it meant getting only three hours of sleep.

The silence is so heavy that Akari feels like it’s wrapping around her throat. But she knows better than to break it; Sakura will tell her what happened when he’s ready. With a soft _click_ , the fairy lights turn off – it’s 1 am – and only the weak glow of the stars on the ceiling and the little bit of light coming through the curtain keep the room from plunging into darkness. They were brighter when they put them up there in eighth grade, trying to form constellations and failing to make any of them recognizable except for the little dipper.

Akari’s palms are starting to feel sweaty and she wipes them on her pajama pants. If she didn’t know better, she would think that Sakura is asleep. His breathing is slow and even and he’s perfectly still. But then a weak noise comes from his throat, and Akari almost flinches.

A few seconds pass before Sakura speaks. His voice is quiet and almost steady, but she’s known him long enough to pick up on the slight trembling.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says. “I didn’t know where else… I don’t think I can go back home. My father won’t let me. They—He kicked me out. For being a disgrace to the family. It’s bad enough that I’m not our team”s ace, but now that he found out…” A whimper escapes his throat.

This isn’t the first time Sakura has told her he cannot go back home. He said the same when he failed that one Japanese test in ninth grade, and when he missed the bar during the first tournament in middle school and his team didn’t make the podium, and when Mitsu got a better score than him. But even though his father scolded him and told him to give up gymnastics because he would never be as good as Akira, Sakura was still his son and Akari was sure that he loved him.

Now, she’s not so sure anymore. Ever since Akira left for college and entered even higher-level competitions, their father barely acknowledges Sakura’s existence. Still, she can’t think of a reason why Dogase-san would go as far as to kick him out of their house. Even for a man as heartless as him, that seems extreme.

When a minute passes and Sakura still doesn’t continue speaking, she turns her head to look at him. His eyes are wide open and glassy and Akari knows he’s trying his hardest not to cry. She doesn’t want to force him to speak, but something tells her that this is different from his usual panic attacks.

“What did he find out?” she whispers, softly brushing her pinky finger against his. It pulls Sakura out of his stupor, and his eyes widen even further at the sudden touch.

He still doesn’t look at her, but he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Promise that you won’t hate me. You _have_ to promise.”

Akari’s chest tightens and she feels her heart beating faster against her ribcage. “I could never hate you,” she says.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I’m—I like boys.” His hands are shaking so badly that Akari can feel it even though they aren’t touching anymore. “I like boys and my father found out and he hates me. He said he never wants to see me again.”

For some reason, she’s not surprised. Neither about Sakura being gay nor about his father kicking him out.

“Do you hate me?” he whispers.

She shakes her head. “No. I told you, I could never hate you. Definitely not for something like that.” She wants to ask how his father found out, but she doubts that Sakura would tell her.

“I hate myself sometimes. It feels like there’s something wrong with me.”

 _I know_ , Akari wants to say, but she doesn’t. Instead, she stares up at the ceiling, counting them. There are forty-two stars, she knows because she has counted them a million times, but she does it anyway. Then, she takes a breath.

“Remember when Kanako started hanging out with us last year? I didn’t like her all that much at first, she always seemed a bit… Distant. So, I was really happy when she said she was interested in gymnastics, even if it was only because she liked Mitsu. After a while, I realized that she’s actually quite nice once you get to know her – she’s just bad at showing it.”

Akari’s palms are sweaty again and her heart is beating much too hard. She knows she’s smiling, even though her head feels so light that she would have to lie down if she was standing.

“Last year after the Interhigh… I was so frustrated when I fell off the balance beam. I didn’t want anyone to know, but of course, Kanako had to find me. She was so nice to me and complimented my gymnastics even though I had messed up so badly. I think…” She takes a stuttering breath. “I think that’s when I realized I was in love with her.”

Her heart is hammering against her ribcage so hard now that it hurts. She’s never said any of this out loud. Usually, Akari doesn’t even let herself think about this. It’s not like Kanako will ever feel the same, anyway.

“I didn’t know,” Sakura says eventually. It’s so _like_ him that she can’t help but roll her eyes.

“Well, of course not! You weren’t supposed to.” She hesitates. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I didn’t want to make this about me, but I didn’t know how else to explain to you that I don’t care that you like boys. I kind of… Get it. The feeling like there’s something wrong with you. Not the… you know.” _The getting kicked out by your unaccepting father._

For a while, they’re both quiet again. For a while, the air feels a little less heavy. But they both know that it’s one thing to share secrets in the dark of Akari’s room like they’re in middle school again, having a sleepover. The reality that Sakura no longer has a home to return to can only be ignored for so long.

“Do you think he’ll change his mind?” Akari asks, even though she knows the answer.

“Do you?” When she doesn’t reply, Sakura sighs. “I don’t know what to do. All my things are still there, and even if I wait until my father is gone so I can sneak back and get some of them… Where am I supposed to go?”

 _You can stay here_ , she wants to say, but as soon as she thinks it, Akari knows that it’s a lie. Her mother would never allow it. She can only think of one other option, but she doubts that Sakura wants to hear it.

“Maybe Akira—”

“Don’t,” he whispers.

And just like that, Akari knows he won’t say anything else. Sakura doesn’t want to talk about his brother, or the rest of his family, or anything at all because it hurts too much. She probably wouldn’t want to talk about it, either.

“Music?” she asks and smiles as Sakura nods. He has terrible taste, and to her, the screeching of guitars and hoarse screaming doesn’t sound like music at all, but it makes him happy, so she listens to it anyway.

She gets up and walks over to her desk where she left her headphones earlier this evening, and then she lies down next to Sakura again. He shifts to pull his phone out of his back pocket, and they both squint at the brightness of the screen as he turns it on. Cursing, he adjusts it and then accepts the headphones, plugging them in. There is an unread message from his mother, but he deletes the notification without opening it.

The album covers in his music library all look the same, and most of the band names make her cringe. A lot of them are Japanese and a few of them English, even though Sakura probably doesn’t understand even half the lyrics. When he finally selects an album and presses play, he hands Akari the right headphone. The volume is much lower than what he usually listens to because he knows she doesn’t like loud music.

Akari stifles a yawn as she shifts on the bed to find a more comfortable position. Sakura pokes a finger between her ribs and mumbles something that she can’t hear over the music.

“What?”

“I said—C’mere.” He wraps an arm around Akari and pulls her closer, until her head is resting on his chest. His heart is beating steadily. She realizes that he’s not crying anymore, hasn’t been for a while.

“You could have just asked for a hug,” she says, smiling. Sakura just grunts.

Listening to music is not going to solve his problems. When morning comes, the questions of where to go and what to do will still be unanswered. But just for a moment, it feels like things aren’t that bad. For a moment, it feels like they are just lying here, listening to Sakura’s terrible music, without a care in the world. For a moment, they are okay.


End file.
